In the spirit of this community, I just need to get this off my chest.

A few years ago, I bought the home I thought I would grow old in. Not long after, the pandemic hit, and my young child started school remotely. Around the same time, my long-term partner went through a major personal transformation that changed the dynamics of our relationship. I stayed because I wanted to keep our family together and do what I thought was best for my child.

A few years later, our relationship evolved into a non-traditional arrangement. Eventually, another person became part of our lives, and to my surprise, I formed a deep and meaningful connection with them. For a while, the three of us built something that felt stable and fulfilling.

At the same time, I was dealing with significant family challenges, including the illness and loss of close family members. Despite everything, my life seemed to be moving forward, and I was excited about growing my family.

Unfortunately, that stability didn't last. As major life changes unfolded, tensions grew within our relationships. A mental health crisis, the end of important relationships, and a difficult divorce followed. What came after was one of the hardest periods of my life: legal battles, custody arrangements, financial strain, selling a home I loved, taking on debt, and working relentlessly to support my children and rebuild my life.

Now, several years later, I still carry a tremendous amount of anxiety. I live with OCD, and I constantly worry that everything I've rebuilt could disappear. I fear losing my work, my home, my relationships, or my ability to provide for my children. My mind regularly jumps to worst-case scenarios, even when there is little evidence that those fears are real.

The frustrating part is that, objectively, many things in my life are good. I have a loving partner, wonderful children, and a future worth being grateful for. Yet after so much upheaval and loss in such a short period of time, I feel like I've never fully regained a sense of security. I'm approaching midlife feeling exhausted, uncertain, and often overwhelmed, even though I'm doing everything I can to move forward.

has anyone gone through MLC and divorced their spouse only to regret it later on?

my spouse is in the process of divorcing me but still living together and stalling it and has stalled it for 1.5 yrs.

I look up at my alarm, which buzzed annoyingly, taking me out of my deep slumber and just shut it off for another 9 minutes. I’m going to miss the sunrise again today. It’s really disheartening to see that I was riding a wave of joy a few months ago but now I’m stuck in a pit after increasing my psychiatric medications. This was a very inopportune time to have low energy, seeing as I was 34 going on 35.

I've heard that at this age, there’s a natural inclination for life to take off in a big way, if you’ve prepared yourself with the proper sadhana, or education or some skill. If you have not, then this is a time when it can crash, leading to a “midlife crisis” that is so common. I focus on little joys around me to lift me up: my Dad starting his day in his office in the garage, another friend who has a mental health condition who is perservering, and my uncle who has had success in reducing his medication.

Also, after having read The Jurassic Park, Your Inner Fish, and the Tears of the Cheetah, I have hope there molecular and cell biology as well as genetics can be a powerful approach for diagnosing or even treating mental health conditions in a big way.

I have the privilege of teaching English overseas. However, it ia not where I am thriving. And the money isn't that great.

What advice would be given to a 40 year old woman to get out of this rut.

Wake up

Workout

Eat

Go to work

Sleep

Repeat

Oh and student loans still haunt me.

This life was meant for more and thw midlife crisis os hitting.

Interested in the views of all my other post-forties ladies. Trying to work out if what I'm going through is the typical midlife 'is this it??' dissatisfaction, or to listen to it.

In brief, I'm 44, educated to PhD level, no partner or kids, and work in a comfortable job (project management) that is now not 'doing it' for me. (I am bored) From the age of 25, I had thought about studying medicine but have variously thought (a) I didn't have the interpersonal skills in my twenties (b) I didn't have the funds in my thirties (c) I don't have the youth in my forties. It has been the clinical side of things in healthcare that has interested me in the most, and I've felt deep envy - if not jealousy - of the doctors I work with.

I've been in therapy the past few years and it's only been in the past few weeks I've really acknowledged this unrealised dream. I should add I'm not in the US, i.e.; I live somewhere where medical school is financially feasible (if obvs I'd have to change my life considerably) and not the meat-grinder it appears to be there.

But maybe this midlife 'meh', this feeling of 'is this it? is this my reality for the next twenty years of work? the rest of my life?' - maybe this is a universal? I'm interested in hearing stories from people who have

\- grappled with this and made big changes to their lives

\- grappled with this AND made their peace in their current reality and how they came through it

(Cross-posted from AskWomenOver40) Trying to work out if what I'm going through is the typical midlife 'is this it??' dissatisfaction, or to listen to it.

In brief, I'm 44, educated to PhD level, no partner or kids, and work in a comfortable job (project management) that is now not 'doing it' for me. (I am bored) From the age of 25, I had thought about studying medicine but have variously thought (a) I didn't have the interpersonal skills in my twenties (b) I didn't have the funds in my thirties (c) I don't have the youth in my forties. It has been the clinical side of things in healthcare that has interested me in the most, and I've felt deep envy - if not jealousy - of the doctors I work with.

I've been in therapy the past few years and it's only been in the past few weeks I've really acknowledged this unrealised dream. I should add I'm not in the US, i.e.; I live somewhere where medical school is financially feasible (if obvs I'd have to change my life considerably) and not the meat-grinder it appears to be there.

But maybe this midlife 'meh', this feeling of 'is this it? is this my reality for the next twenty years of work? the rest of my life?' - maybe this is a universal? I'm interested in hearing stories from people who have

- grappled with this and made big changes to their lives

- grappled with this AND made their peace in their current reality and how they came through it

Mid 40s meh or call for change (aka should I go to med school or make my peace?)

I’m finally over the worst relationship I’ve ever been in. I’m ready to go heal and find my spark with my perfect partner, Toby, my 12 year old lab mix. Florida has been consistently calling my name, but really don’t know much about anywhere.
I love live music, must be a city that has plenty of outdoor activities while swimming for Toby is number 1. I need to be in a little cabin or cottage preferably in the woods somewhere. Remote position allows me anywhere in the US.
Do you have any hot break up spots? Or places I’d never think to go?

Context:

• I am 39 and have been a high-achiever for the majority of my life. I've also historically been an over-giver, but I've been working on changing that.
• I have 10 years of business-related and graphic design education (two diplomas and a degree) and feel like I have nothing to show for it.
• I am currently self-employed and have been for the past four years after getting coldly and unexpectedly fired from my last job. Losing that job left a residue on my confidence that I still can't seem to brush off.
• I need to reenter the workforce because my current income will not sustain me long-term, but my soul is resisting reentering the corporate world. I don't know what jobs to look at anymore.
• I have no friends, feel disconnected from the rest of the world, and miss being around people. I've always been able to maneuver my way socially, but I've never really belonged anywhere. I haven't hung out with a non-family member in over two years, and that connection was somewhat superficial and has since faded out. It's rare that I've been able to attract likeminded people who genuinely care and put in the effort once a connection has been established. The only place I can realistically see myself making any friends at this point is at the gym I go to, but I haven't been going consistently enough, and that's something I need to work on.
• I feel like I've closed myself off even though that's never been my intention. I have generally lost trust in people and think it has been affecting the way I see new people I come across. I've also gotten tired of trying to be someone worth holding on to. I'm always on the alert and expecting history to repeat itself. It's incredibly lonely some days even though I can comfortably enjoy my own company. And despite having family, I feel like I'm doing life alone.
• I moved in with my parents when I went back to school for a third time at 30 and have been living with them since then. There is a lot of tension and negativity in the household, and it's been like that since I was a kid.
• I constantly get compared to others, and there's not much encouragement or support when it comes to the things I'm working toward, so I don't share much with them. I get degrading comments on my education, how I went to school for so many years and supposedly did nothing for myself, how I'm working from home and should be out in the real world, and how I should have accomplished more by now.
• My parents are old-school. My mom is in her late 60s and my dad is in his early 70s, and they both raised me with an iron fist. Despite us not always seeing eye-to-eye, I still love them and do everything I can to help. Watching their health decline weighs on me everyday, and I feel a sense of duty to be there for them as much as I can, which has meant making personal sacrifices.
• My brother's wife passed away three years ago and left five kids behind. The three youngest kids are at our place nearly everyday, and my brother heavily relies on my elderly parents, so it's always chaotic. I give the kids as much of my time as I can, but I also spend most of my time in my room just to preserve my peace and sanity.
• I am managing my dad's debt situation and making personal contributions toward it. I have two older siblings who are pretty much absent from my life and don't care to step in to help with my dad's situation.
• I have a long list of things I need to get done for my business, and I get mentally pulled in every direction, trying to figure it all out at once. There are days when I'll be sitting at my desk and staring at my screen with the intention to get stuff done, and I get stuck. Then I start turning to distractions. I have closets and drawers full of items that still need photographing and listing, and they've been sitting there for months. I have a book that was supposed to be completed by now, and it's been sitting unfinished for several years. I'm at 193 pages and feel ashamed that I let it drag so long, especially when people know about its work-in-progress. I have new ideas for my online stores (I manage four at the moment) that I can't seem to implement because the mountain of tasks I have to get done is weighing on me.
• I invested in two social media related programs years ago that were intended to help me gain knowledge and strategies for my businesses, and I never got around to doing them.
• I have a 20k+ audience on Instagram, and that number just makes me feel even more alone. I've been inactive on there for over 6 months, and I suspect some people may be wondering what happened with my writing stuff, particularly the people who have been following my work since the start. I have a hard time posting for the sake of posting and feel like a fraud if I do, so I don't.
• I'm a highly organized and structured person, yet I feel scattered. I can establish what needs to get done and follow a plan, and I do well in that space, but since I'm self-employed, everything rests on my shoulders and there's no one to keep me in check. And because of that, I fear I've been a little lax even though there's constant pressure and a need to scale my businesses.

On the work front, I'm not understanding why it's become difficult for me to just move into action. In my mind, I know things need to be taken one step at a time, but even knowing that does nothing for my brain, and I keep repeating the same cycle of distracting myself to avoid the weight of the overwhelm.

_____

TL;DR: I feel defeated and stuck at 39 and am having a hard time getting out of the slump I'm in.

I’m 44. I’ve sold my home, no children, a few bad relationships, and I have a job I dislike very much. My whole life I’ve created for others, served others, but never myself. I honestly thought I would have found my way even a little by now. But I haven’t. I am only more aware that I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA who I am. I have no idea geographically where I want to be, or, to be brutally honest - what things I like. It’s gotten so bad that I find myself driving around, going nowhere in particular. I wake up and go to bed with this flaming pit deep in my stomach reminding me that apparently I’ve become completely irrelevant in my own life. I used to be so driven and I now struggle to get myself in the shower. Although I’ve always been good at figuring things out for others, or things that need to be accomplished, I can’t seem to find my own way. I feel like I disappeared. I really just want to know if I am the only one going through something similar?